Veronika Pister (FRAENKEL LAB)

Identifying Targeted Therapeutic Candidates in Brain Tumors

Medulloblastoma (MB) is one of the most common malignant pediatric brain tumors and demands identification of targeted therapies for improved patient outcome. Immunotherapy has emerged as an effective therapeutic option in recent decades but has demonstrated little success in solid brain tumors. Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the mechanism of immune evasion which MB tumors employ. We propose a novel spatial mapping of tumor-immune interactions in MB for the identification of potential therapeutic avenues.

Nick Nolan (COLLINS & DEL VECCHIO LABS)

Chaperone Competition Affects Performance of Bacterial Synthetic Genetic Circuits

Chaperones are a global protein-folding resource in cellular systems. Introducing genetic circuits into a cell places a load on chaperones, which may result in unintended coupling between otherwise independent circuits. Previous analyses considered the loading of other resources, but neglected chaperones. We develop and characterize different models of chaperone activity, and identify distinct responses that result from these architectures. We propose that native chaperone systems may have built-in motifs to mitigate these coupling effects.